Eivind Lunde

Mixed and sprayed a blue shade that compliments the unit decals and the Bavarian blue colours pretty well, although Bavarian blue is usually depicted a bit lighter. Touched up some of the inevitable masking accidents and then sprayed it with floor polish to make it ready for decals and washes.

No, if there is something I have learned over the years it is that colour hues are almost impossible to pin down with any certainty. Nice kit btw, I almost regret not buying the seaplane version, as seaplanes are very cool and rarely made into kits.

It has been a long while since the last update, I blame that on a long holiday and the purchase of a new motorcycle I finally chose my colour after looking at a lot of pictures of the He-51 on the internets, both periods and replicas. The colour in the period pictures and movies look very light grey to me. My guess for a colour "match" is Vallejo USAF Light Grey, which may be a bit too light, but I`ll try to tone it down a bit later on. It looks a bit greyer in real life than this. I`m not kidding when I say I have had close to 10 resprays of the fuselage, since there is so little contrast between the Roden plastic colour and the colour of my choice that I always spotted an area I had missed or not covered good enough. But after having mixed and sprayed the main colour 10 times I had to do something else, so I put the decals on the top wing. I sprayed the wing with an acrylic floot polish I found, I`m sure it is not even close to the legendary Future, but it sprays like water and gives a nice semi gloss shine that goes well with models that should not be completely matte. The Printscale decals went down well, and even the huge clear decal part between the letters is almost invisible. Which is good since I forgot to cut it away. I added the underwing compass from an Airscale decal and a brass instrument ring. It needs some touching up, but will look fine. The mirror is made with the use of a Liquid Chrome pen, but did not come out nearly as good as I`d hoped. Maybe some aluminum foil? Or maybe just leave it be. It is always nice to reach the stage where you can carefully put all the major parts together and kind of imagine how it will end up: But finally the RLM 63 part is done, and the next step is to spray the most likely blue colour, Bavarian blue. Not RLM 24 as suggested by the Printscale decal sheet instructions (That is two swings and two misses for them so far). I will need to mix that shade to match the blue on the decals, which unfortunately veers a bit towards purple. But If I can get the match good enough to survive a casual glance, I will be satisfied. This hobby should be enjoyable after all. And speaking about enjoyable, I need to fiddle with getting the exhaust stack in there. That will be a challenge.

Thanks for the rigging diagram, that will come in helpful. Only small progress since last post, done a bit of thinking on how to add the exhaust stack after the engine cowling has been fitted and painted with the rest of the plane, and sprayed the Quickboost resin exhaust Vallejo exhaust metal. Next up will be weathering it a bit with some rust and tan colour, or something like that. Oh, and removing the little resin hole, and the tiny hair that somehow got stuck to it. Painting the exhaust stack is one of my favourite parts of model building. I also did a speed run to my closest hobby shop where I got my foot in the door just a minute before they closed on Saturday, and bought a bottle of Vallejo RLM 63. It was only after I came home I took a good look at Vallejos interpretation of the RLM 63 Hellgrau colour: Hmmm... Really? I asked my German speaking girlfriend what "Hellgrau" meant, and she said "light grey", just like it says on the box. I am colourblind, but surely this is not light grey?? It certainly is a lot different than the other variants of RRL 63 I`ve seen, but maybe they are right and the others are wrong. I`m assuming they are wrong, and I`m going to mix my own, lighter, shade. Partly because there is no way the plane is that dark when you look at the picture of it I posted, and partly because I think a lighter grey would make the plane look a lot better together with the darker RLM 24 blue nose.

OK, I assumed it was not since your list of decal options was identical to the one in the Hyperscale.com review, none mentioning Clostermanns, so I assumed it was from the instructions. But no big deal, only a bit curious.

Two of the decal options, and the plane on the box, is of course Clostermanns "Le Grand Charles" . I find it a bit curious that it is not mentioned as a decal option on the kit, only pilot mentioned by name is John Chester Button. But since reading "The Big Show" as a kid was what got me interested in airplanes, I've waited for years for a good 1/48 Tempest series II, so that's what I'll build. 😃

Yeah, I`ve heard about the Flory washes. Do you use them for panel lines, or can they be used to make a slight variation of a colour too?

The Print Scale sheet says RLM01 + RLM24 blue for the nose. But every other model I`ve seen in the pre-war scheme is, as you say, grey. The picture I have posted on the first page of the plane in question could be grey, or silver, after looking (well, staring) at it for some time I guess I`d say grey is more likely. And I guess it would be unusual for one plane, or one squadron for that matter, to be painted in an out of regulation colour. So I think you are on to something here!

Yup, I think you are right. Sounds plausible. I may mix in a little bit of grey to slightly dull the Vallejo RLM01, as it is very silvery as is.

Thanks, good stuff. But this plane is mostly not metal, but just fabric painted silver. So there are not many metal panels, and those that exist are just painted RLM01. So what would you suggest to break up a painted silver surface? Would it even need breaking up, or would it appear as single colour without the variation you`d get on a say, black or olive drab coloured plane?

Some general glueing and sanding brings it closer to the painting stage. A great tip I read somewhere was to cut an opening in the circle that holds the wheel inside the wheel pants, that way you can add the wheels when everything's painted and done Speaking about painting, the plane is to be done in overall RLM02 silver. Is there any way to break up the silver so that it does not look too monotone? Perhaps some shading in black? Any tips more than welcome, as this is my first plane done in silver.

Not much work done lately , but I have at least glued the fuselage halves together. The fit is pretty good but unfortunately the upper part of the fuselage framework is visible through the door opening, which it shouldn't be. So another lesson learned, I should have scratchbuilt something to replace the kit frames and painted the interior light grey with perhaps bare metal fuselage insides as this may be more correct for the A version at least. But learning by constantly doing mistakes is fun, right? Right? The underside with the clever fixed gear solution, the faired legs are moulded with the fuselage and the inside half of them is added to the joint fuselage, thus making a perfect joint to the fuselage and a very strong gear at that. The fit is not so good though. Prioritizing a good (visible) wing root fit over a good, but difficult to see, fit under the fuselage will leave you with a bit of puttying and sanding to smooth it out.

Well, it is too late to do anything about this now. I just have to accept that the real plane had different interior colours than mine, even though it irritates me no end knowing about it. I guess I can calm myself with the knowledge that a lot of the cockpit details just casually resembles the drawings from the instruction book, so obsessing about it is just silly. And a quick Google search shows a lot of people has done the same mistake of following the painting instructions, so I am in good company. Cockpit framework finished. It was a bit annoying getting all the tubes to align, but taking it one at a time made it quit easy. I also added a bit of simple detailing but you`d need an endoscope or something to see most of it when the fuselage is closed up, so I guess it is just for my own peace of mind. Glued to the left fuselage side and with the blind flying instrument panel in place, the cockpit looks pleasantly busy.

Of course. I found a photograph of the exact plane I`m modelling with the cockpit door open, and the door is obviously plain metal and at least parts of the rest of the cockpit seems to be light grey, not RLM02. Could the inner fuselage have been unpainted metal (except some sort of clear lacquer), and the framework and cockpit details light grey?

A bit more progress, and I`m really close to finishing the cockpit and to glue the fuselage together now. The seat came out fine, the unpainted AML Luftwaffe seatbelts got a lick of sand colour followed by a wash of red brown which worked surprisingly well. I remade the missing part by bending some stretched sprue and adding a grip from superglue, and that took half the time I spent under the table looking for the part. And it is much thinner and scale like in appearance too, so while a bit primitive, it isn't too bad. I added a prominent placard from an Airscale sheet and made a simple recreation of the tube that runs along the edge of the cockpit (not sure what it is, any ideas?) from stretched sprue. Both are very visible in this original cockpit drawing: Test fitting the framework and seat, I painted the tubes semi gloss as metal usually is gloss and it also makes it stand out a little against the matt RLM02 cockpit side. I sure hope the cage with the seat and everything will fit nicely into the fuselage without creating noticeable gaps on either side, very close to finding out now!

Very nice work, and gosh, Eduard has come a long way haven't they. I envy your patience with the photo etched parts, I have very mixed feelings about them myself.

Yep, unfortunately it will be seen, and also bring some needed detail to the cockpit. But I`m pretty sure I can get away with it by just bending some sprue into shape, and if not, it shouldn`t take to long making something even for an amateur like me.

The framework of the cockpit slightly weathered with a wash, and with some new levers made from stretched sprue dipped in superglue to get the ball handle. They are much thinner than the originals, and looks a bit better IMO. The instrument box has gotten some Airscale treatment too. About half the time I spend on building is spent on the carpet looking for parts, so why should this be any different? I painted the handle that I guess is used to retract something (the flaps I guess since this plane has a fixed landing gear) and when left to dry I started to work on the framework. I forgot that I had placed the handle to dry completely while rested on one of the sprues, cleaned up the desk by putting the sprue back into the box, and spent 10 minutes in vain looking for it on the floor. It could be basically everywhere by now, even in another city for all I know, so I need to recreate it from scratch. The red oval marks the spot of the missing part:

Yeah, I`m buying the exhaust for sure. The top cowl will fix the carburettor air intake which is not quite correct after what I understand, but I`m not going to spend too much time or money on this. Why didn`t CA glue work for you? I have rigged several models with EZ line and CA glue, and while the EZ line can split and curl in contact with CA I have just tried again because I find it invaluable to have it stick so quickly when rigging. Not to mention the strong bond it gives.

So, the build has begun by skipping the suggestion in the instructions that you should start with the drop tank before moving on to the elevators, and going straight to the cockpit part. Glueing the framework and other parts together did not cause any problems, but I hate the toylike thickness of most injected moulded levers, so that will have to be dealt with. I did some research into cockpit colours and sprayed the cockpit Vallejo RLM02 as suggested in the instructions, and the instrument panels RLM66 as suggested elsewhere. The cockpit is pretty detailed, but the instrument panels are a bit of a let down with only empty rings to suggest where the instruments are, and no details or needles/pointers. Unfortunately I forgot to take any "before" pictures, but I`m sure you have all seen this before. So I used some Airscale instrument bezels and decals to add some detail, mostly to the upper blind flying panel since the lower panels have so small instruments that neither bezels or decals would fit. The lower panels looks kinda boring, but so does the real thing according to the one picture I have of it. This is with the kit lever part attached and the smaller instruments just filled in with black and gloss paint. The lever will need to go on a diet to look more like the real thing. The blind flying panel is all Airscale now, and while I am not all that happy with the low resolution of the decals (surely we could get more HD like decals nowadays?), the overall improvement is noticeable. Next up: Messing a bit more with the cockpit, and gaining strength to deal with the photo etched AML seatbelts.

Yeah, I`m pretty sure it should be quite easy to make an A.1 out of the kit as I did some research on the differences a while back, but have forgotten all about it now. And if not, well, then I will have a B.1 in A.1 markings on my shelf and be the laughing stock of everyone that notices it.

This is the scheme I selected, He-51 A.1 3/JG 233 Wien Aspern 1938, in RLM 01 silver and RLM 24 blue, done by Printscale: Since it is an A.1 I need to backdate it, but I don`t think there is much visible difference between the A and B series.

The 1930s was a hugely interesting decade for a lot of different reasons, not least because of the incredible speed in which aeroplanes developed. Torn between the age of the biplane and the new times, the unfortunate He-51 was basically outdated as soon as the paint dried on its wings, like so many other designs from the early to mid 1930s. Shipped to Spain to prove itself it had a very short period with success against even more outdated planes, but had to be withdrawn as a fighter plane before it embarrassed the Third Reich further and redeployed as a ground attack aircraft. It did find some success there and was eventually produced in a pretty impressive 722 examples, which lingered on as advanced trainers and perhaps factory protection for the first years of the war. As a ground attack plane it got its only nickname, "Caza de Cadena" or "Chain Fighter", after the way they attacked ground targets, coming in one by one to draw fire away from the plane that had just finished its attack. A pretty boring nickname for a fighter I guess few remembered fondly, or even at all. But still, it is from the 1930s interwar period that I enjoy very much, and while in my eyes not as pretty as some people think due to its somewhat bulbous cro-magnon forehead created by the BMW engine, it did appear in some handsome colour schemes. The kit is Rodens He-51 B.1, which is a nicely detailed kit I hope will go together well. It will be built mostly OOTB with after marked decals, a bit of Quickboost resin and other stuff, plus some amateurish scratchbuilding where needed. So not really OOTB at all then.

Unfortunately this kit is heading for the shelf of doom for now, as we have decided to part ways to pursue other interests. We may find ourselves together sometime in the future so I`m not giving up, we`re just taking a break from each other.

Yeah, I will look into solving the fit problems sooner or later, but as I have said earlier in the thread, this kit and I haven`t really gotten along so far. I used to be a serial starter but just an occasional finisher back in the day, but after I came back to the hobby a few years ago I have finished about half the kits I`ve started, which is much better than usual for me. The unfinished kits I have considered learning projects.